Türkiye’s First Typhoon Takes Shape at Samlesbury
Share this story A year after Türkiye signed for 20 new Eurofighter Typhoons, the first of them is taking physical shape. BAE Systems announced on 5 November 2026 that assembly of the aircraft’s front fuselage is under way at its Samlesbury factory in...
Tupolev Tu-22 Blinder: The First Soviet Supersonic Bomber
Share this story On 7 September 1987, two Libyan bombers ran in towards N’Djamena, the capital of Chad. A French MIM-23 Hawk missile battery fired, and one of them fell out of the sky. Inside the cockpit section were the bodies of its crew of three, all East...
VOR Navigation Explained: How Radials Guide Aircraft Home
Share this story Drive through farmland in Europe or North America and you may pass something that looks like a landed flying saucer: a flat metal disc on stilts, ringed with small white domes, with a little hut underneath. It is not a radar and it is not listening to...
Supermarine Seafire: The Spitfire That Struggled to Land at Sea
Share this story On the morning of 9 September 1943 the sea in the Gulf of Salerno was almost glass. For the pilots of 106 Seafires circling above them, it was the start of a nightmare. Their escort carriers could barely make 17 knots, and with no natural wind there...
Archer Formula 1 Deal: Air Taxis Could Fly Fans to Grands Prix
Share this story Anyone who has sat in the queue out of a Grand Prix car park knows the problem. On Thursday 12 November 2026, Archer Aviation and Formula 1 announced a possible answer from above: a multi-year partnership that could one day see electric air taxis...
FAA Remote ID: What Every Drone Broadcasts, and Who Can See It
Share this story Stand in an American park on a Saturday morning, open a free app on an Android phone, and you can read the serial number of the drone buzzing over the trees. You can read its height, its speed and its position. And in most cases you can read something...
Nanchang Q-5 Fantan: China’s MiG-19 Turned Nuclear Strike Jet
Share this story On 30 December 1971, a Chinese pilot named Yang Guoxiang lined up over the Lop Nur test site in north-west China, pressed the release, and waited for a live nuclear bomb to fall away from his small, single-seat attack jet. “Nothing happened! The...
Strategic Airlift Explained: How an Army Crosses an Ocean by Air
Share this story On 15 August 2021, a US Air Force C-17 Globemaster III with the call sign REACH871 sat on the ramp at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul while Afghans who had made it through the gates climbed up the open ramp. The crew decided to take off...
FAA Operating Limitations: The Rulebook Written for One Aircraft
Share this story Park two identical kit aeroplanes side by side. Same kit, same engine, same paint. One owner may sign off his own annual condition inspection; the other, with exactly the same training, may not. The difference is not in the aircraft, the pilots or the...
Kawasaki Ki-61 Hien: The Tony, Japan’s Liquid-Cooled Fighter
Share this story On 18 April 1942, as Jimmy Doolittle’s B-25s swept low over Japan, one of the American crews reported a fighter that should not have been there. It had a long, pointed nose, a liquid-cooled engine and the lines of a European thoroughbred. The...
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